Digital/Online Marketing Communications Strategy

Before we call it a wrap for 2015, let’s take time for the annual rite of crystal-balling on what’s in store for the coming year.

As can be expected, there’s no shortage of predictions. I’ve read plenty of posts with forecasts for assorted topics relevant to digital communications and here are a few of my faves…

The 5 Biggest Tech Trends To Watch In 2016: The popularity of smartphones and tablets, coupled with with the rise of internet TV, smart watches and other connected devices, gives a clear signal that the future of communications is intricately tied to technology. Ergo, if you’re involved in marketing and/or public relations, you must pay attention to tech trends. Dave Smith, senior technology editor of Tech Insider, picks five hot ones to watch. Tech Insider

The Top 7 Online Marketing Trends That Will Dominate 2016: Online marketing is poised for sweeping changes. Be ready for the new reality; as in virtual reality finally taking off in a meaningful and potentially profitable way for business. Also, video ads, apps, digital assistants and the Internet of Things go big in 2016. Forbes

16 Graphic Design Trends To Watch In 2016: Designing for peak user experience should be a goal of any website. Yet certain aspects carry more weight in the eyes of site visitors and search engines. Add in the fact that user preferences change over time, and you owe it to yourself to be aware of current trends. Ernesto Olivares sheds light on new directions in web design. He’s got a good eye for the future. Ernesto Olivares Visual Information

Getty Images Reveals The Defining Visual Trends For 2016: Getty Images’ vast resources — which include data from approximately 400 million downloads of stock photography, illustration, video and music — gives the company an exceptional vantage point to measure the pulse of global trends in design, advertising and brand communications. Here’s their forecast, highlighting six visual trends for 2016, including Messthetics: “A break away from predictability and a reaction to the perfection we often see in advertising imagery, the Messthetics approach to image making stands out in a busy market of sameness. The imagery is messy, grimy, sweaty, visceral, beautiful and ugly.” Getty Images

10 Content Marketing Game Changers To Look For In 2016: Engagement through well-crafted content is all well and good, but the bottom line lies in conversions. Continued success depends on your ability to identify new opportunities to connect and convert. Who better to tell it like it is, and will be, than Shafqat Islam, Chief Executive Officer of the NewsCred content marketing platform. Mashable

Pantone Color of the Year: Pantone, the popular standardized system for “the selection and accurate communication of color,” has chosen a blending of two shades — Rose Quartz and Serenity — as the 2016 Color of the Year. According to Pantone this combo of warm rose and tranquil blue best reflects the tenor of our times: “As consumers seek mindfulness and well-being as an antidote to modern day stresses, welcoming colors that psychologically fulfill our yearning for reassurance and security are becoming more prominent.” Pantone

Final word

Word Of The Year: Merriam Webster announced its Word of the Year is, drum roll please… -ism.

That’s not a typo. The suffix –ism takes the crown. According to Merriam Webster -ism earns the top prize “because a small group of words that share this three-letter ending triggered both high volume and significant year-over-year increase in lookups at Merriam-Webster.com. Taken together, these seven words represent millions of individual dictionary lookups.” Merriam Webster

To find out the seven words ending in -ism that accounted for the most lookups, check out this behind the scenes video.

Meanwhile, as noted in my November Digital Highlights post, Oxford’s Dictionary’s 2015 Word of the Year is actually a digital image, the “Tears of Joy” emoji. If one more non-word wins a Word of the Year prize, we’ll call it a trend.